• A company should be carbon neutral. Patagonia is a shining example, as the company uses recycled materials. Via their program Common Threads, people can bring in old fleeces and T-shirts and recycle them into new clothes. They will also give you a fabric bag that can either be used as a pillowcase or a drip-dry cleaning bag.

Heather Stephenson and Jen Boulden, co-founders of the blog Idealbite.com, which was recently acquired by Walt Disney Co.

• Replace desktops with laptops. Laptops use 90 percent less energy than desktops, and they are getting more and more powerful. By always setting your computer to go to sleep mode after it has rested for five minutes, your company will not only conserve energy, but save $25 to $75 a year. And at night, always turn your computer off. Computers today are designed to be turned on and off 10,000 times, and the energy usage required to turn them on and off is much less than the energy expended when they run overnight.

• Ditch the bottled water. A lot of offices are addicted, but 40 percent of the time, the bottled water you purchase is only tap water. Furthermore, it takes about a thousand years for the plastic to degrade properly. Save a lot of money by simply putting a filter on the faucet from Brita or Pur.

Starre Vartan, author of “The Eco Chick Guide to Life.”

• Eco-friendly, AZO-free dyes are commercially available, while super natural options such as Earthues, used by Ekovaruhuset and Eko-lab designers, are extremely earth-conscious alternatives.

Renée Loux, chef and host of the TV show “It’s Easy Being Green” on the Fine Living Network and author of “Easy Green Living.”

• Conventional chlorine-based bleaching is very toxic to the environment. Oxygen bleaching is a wonderful solution. Like chlorine bleach, it oxidizes the cloth and scours it, but what is left over is a nontoxic oxygen water and soda ash.

• Consider more sustainable options for trimmings: choose a natural material like coconut wood or bamboo for buttons or use recycled hardware for blue jeans. In the future, look for zippers made out of a plant-based plastic like corn plastic.

Summer Rayne Oakes, author of the forthcoming book “Style, Naturally” and member of the board of advisors for Discovery Network’s “Planet Green.”

• Be transparent. It’s really hard to have an eco-friendly business if you are not transparent with your entire operation. Nike has signed up with a company called Historic Futures that maps out a business’s entire supply chain. A number of labels have been using a company out of Amsterdam called Made By, which creates a code that, when scanned, reveals a piece of clothing’s entire range of production.

Sloan Barnett, author of “Green Goes With Everything,” contributor on NBC’s “Today” show and green editor for KNTV in San Francisco.

• Create a healthy shopping environment by using biodegradable nontoxic cleaning products like Shaklee, a full line of natural cleaning products made from corn surfactants.